The Immortal Cheerleader
by screaminheathen69
Summary: The Big Battle is over, so Claire goes on a trip and discovers something new about herself. Crossover with 'Highlander'.
1. Chapter 1

Summary: The Big Battle is over, so Claire goes on a trip and discovers something new about herself. Crossover with 'Highlander'.

Notes: When I started writing this, the series was only up to the episode 'Run!', so I had no idea what was still to come. So any changes from canon will just be considered AU. Hey, it's a good excuse, right?

Disclaimer: Nope. Not mine. Wish it was. Then rolling in dough would I be. But rolling in dough I am not, so the suing thing? _Soooo_ not worth it.

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THE IMMORTAL CHEERLEADER

By screaminheathen69

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Chapter the First

_So, _Claire Bennett thought to herself, _this is Paris. Hmmph. Who'da thunk it'd rain this much..._

She had decided that she wasn't impressed. Although, to be fair, it probably had a lot to do with the fact that she'd been robbed just two days after arriving, leaving her with almost no money, no passport, no ID, no cell phone, and just the clothes on her back. Not to mention a less than perfect understanding of the French language.

And Hiro wasn't due back to pick her up for another month. _Great planning there..._

She'd been unable to get ahold of her father. Nathan had been very generous, giving her the $100,000 he'd promised her mother, but it was all done under the table. Even after everything that had happened, he was still keeping up the family man routine. It had helped him get elected to congress after all. Go with what works, right?

She pulled her sodden sweatshirt a little tighter and ducked under a bridge. And sneezed. _Great. Swell. I suppose I'm going to catch a cold now. Don't suppose my freakazoid ability will stop _that_ from happening. Couldn't get that lucky, now could I?_

All she had wanted was a little vacation. Just some time away from her old life to absorb everything that had happened over the last few months. Discovering her abilities, finding out about her adoptive father's secrets, finding her birth parents, meeting her uncle Peter, meeting all the other Heroes (Hiro still insisted on calling their little band of misfits that, in spite of everything).

Time to deal with losing her adoptive family and her mother to that bastard Sylar. To deal with the insanity in Las Vegas and New York. Strong as she was, she was still just seventeen. There's just so much a person can take, you know?

So, when she mentioned that she'd always wanted to see France, her surrogate family (Peter, Zack, Isaac, Hiro and Ando, as well as Matt, Niki and their families) had all banded together to work out the trip for her. Peter had even managed to persuade Nathan to get her a passport. And, to save time, Hiro had teleported her there, promising to meet her on top of the Eiffel Tower six weeks later.

She'd had a marvelous time, doing the tourist thing, able to forget her troubles for a while.

For two days, anyway.

The trip had kind of gone downhill from there. The cab she was in had been stolen, along with all her luggage, even her handbag. And, due to the events in Vegas and New York, she was supposed to be keeping a low profile, which ruled out going to the police or the American consulate.

_Dammit, Isaac, isn't it about time to have one of your visions?_

After a while the rain slowed to a drizzle. Claire dug the last of her money out of her pocket and counted it. "Well, I hope it's enough for a burger and fries." Shrugging, she stuffed the bills into her hip pocket and started walking along the river bank, hoping to find a cheap cafe somewhere close by.

As she was walking past an old barge, she felt... something. It was like electricity crawling up and down her spine, an even creepier feeling than when Sylar had her by the throat. She stopped in her tracks, looking around nervously, trying to figure out what was going on. Her roving eyes finally settled on a man standing on the barge, who was staring right back at her.

He stared at her for a long minute, then made his way down the gangplank, stopping a few feet away from her. He gave her a curt nod, his face stiff. "I'm Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod."

Claire drew in a shuddering breath. "Umm, I'm Claire. Claire Bennett," she stammered out.

Duncan's expression softened as he realised the girl was terrified.

"You have no idea what you are, do you?"

_To be continued...

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_'To thee no star be dark...'_


	2. Chapter the Second

Notes: If you've seen 'Highlander : Endgame', then you know who Kate is. If you haven't, go rent it!

Disclaimer: Wish I did own it. But, no, _they_ do. You know; The Ones With The Money. Of which I have none.

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THE IMMORTAL CHEERLEADER

By screaminheathen69

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_"You have no idea what you are, do you?"_

Chapter the Second

It took some coaxing, but Duncan and Kate finally got Claire to come in out of the rain. Which, she grudgingly admitted to herself as she sat warming herself next to the fire, was just a darn good idea. And the huge mug of steaming hot chocolate Kate insisted she drink? That was darn nice, too.

"Soooo..."

Duncan sat there, trying to look as non-threatening as possible. "Yes?"

"Nice, umm, boat you have here," gesturing at the room in general with her mug.

"We like it," Kate said.

"Very homey," Claire said.

"We try," Duncan said.

"So what is it that you think I am, exactly?" Claire asked nonchalantly. Well, she was trying for nonchalant. It mostly came across as scared and jittery.

"Immortal," Duncan said, having been expecting the question.

Claire's eyebrows disappeared somewhere above her bangs. That was so not the answer she was expecting. "Huh?"

"You're an Immortal. You can't die."

"I know what immortal means! What makes you think I'm immortal?"

Duncan glanced at Kate, then turned back to Claire. "We could feel you. We're also Immortals. When two Immortals get close enough to each other, they can sense each others presence."

Claire thought about it for a second. "Does it feel sorta like having bugs crawling all over you while you're being electrocuted?"

"Pretty much, yeah," Duncan said.

"Oh." Claire sipped at her hot chocolate, mulling it over. "How did I become Immortal?"

"You're born with the ability, but you don't actually become Immortal unless you die a violent death."

"Guess that explains that. So, I can't die? Ever?"

Duncan grimaced. "Well, there is _one_ way. If you're ever beheaded, then you die for good."

Claire sat back in her chair grinning. "So all I have to do is not lose my head. Shouldn't be too hard."

Duncan started to say something, but Kate cut him off. "You don't seem particularly surprised about what we've told you."

Claire shrugged. "After this last year, I'm not sure _anything_ could surprise me. It is nice to have an explanation, though. I thought I was just another mutant."

"Mutant?" Duncan asked.

Claire made air quotes. "_'Genetic aberration'_. It runs in my family. And most of my friends, too. Wait'll you meet Hiro. This is really good hot chocolate, by the way."

Kate smiled. "Thanks. Umm, who's Hiro?"

"One of my friends. He can teleport and mess with time. It's pretty cool."

_That _one took the Duncan and Kate by surprise. "He can teleport?" Duncan asked uncertainly.

"Yup. And control time." Claire said absentmindedly, staring at Kate. "You know, you look a lot like that fashion designer, Faith."

Kate grinned. "That's because I _am_ Faith. Or, at least I used to be, a lifetime ago."

"Cool! I love your stuff."

While the women-folk talked fashion for a few minutes, Duncan made some fresh hot chocolate and refilled everyone's mugs. Sitting back down, he turned the conversation back to the previous subject. "So, when did you notice you were different?"

"About a year ago, I guess. I cut my hand really bad, and it healed almost instantly. After that, I did some experimenting. Even died a few times, but I always popped right back up. Even burns heal all lickety-split."

"How badly have you been burned?" Kate asked.

"I've been completely crispy twice... no, sorry, three times now. It was very, very gross." Claire shuddered at the thought.

"Third degree burns?" Duncan asked, a thoughtful expression on his face.

"When I say 'crispy', I mean 'crispy'. Think 'charcoal briquet'."

Kate, picking up on Duncan's line of thought, asked "And how fast did you heal?"

Claire shrugged. "A few minutes. Why?"

"Immortals heal quickly, but not that quickly. I've been burned that badly a few times myself. It took days to fully recover," Duncan answered.

Claire quirked an eyebrow. "So, what, I'm not an Immortal after all?"

Duncan shook his head. "No, you're definitely an Immortal. Just different, I think. When did you die for the first time?"

"The rapid healing doesn't kick in 'til after you die, right?"

Kate nodded. "Right."

"Then it has to have been when I was a baby. There was a fire. My mother thought that I died in that fire. I didn't see her again till I found her when I was seventeen."

Duncan was shaking his head again. "No. You can't have died then. If you had, you'd still be a baby. Immortals don't age after their First Death. Your healing factor must have been working even back then. When was the next time you died?"

Claire closed her eyes, thinking back. "Last year, after I figured out that I healed real fast. In one of my experiments, I jumped off a catwalk from thirty feet up. I broke my neck when I hit."

"Are you sure?" Duncan asked.

Claire nodded, grim faced. "Oooh, yeah. I got it all on tape. I thought Zack was gonna lose his lunch. _I_ almost did when I watched it."

Duncan and Kate both wore sympathetic expressions. They'd both had their necks broken at one point or another. It wasn't a pleasant memory.

"That would be your First Death, then," Duncan said. "You'll be the age you were then for the rest of your life. Which, hopefully, will be a very long time."

Claire thought about that for a bit. "So, let me get this straight; Not only am I a genetic freak, I'm an _Immortal_ genetic freak, and as an added bonus, I'm going to be perpetually seventeen?"

"Yup," Duncan said.

"Oh, for cryin' out loud! Nobody will _ever_ take me seriously!" Claire said indignantly. Duncan and Kate couldn't help but laugh at the forlorn look on Claire's face.

Claire sagged back in her chair. After a few minutes, she sighed and looked up at her hosts. "So. Any more surprises?" Duncan grimaced and Kate screwed up her face. "Guess so. Lay it on me." She made a 'c'mon' motion with her hands.

And lay it on her they did. Anybody wanna take a guess as to just how thrilled our young heroine was to find out about The Game?

Uh-huh. Yeah. And then some...

_To be continued...

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_'To thee no star be dark...'_


	3. Chapter the Third

Notes: Okay, when I got the idea for this fic, I had a real good idea for the start, and what I'm pretty sure is gonna happen in the end, but I'm kinda making up these middle bits as I go. So, please forgive me if the updates are a bit irregular.

Disclaimer: No money bein' made here. Nope. Nada. Nary a bit. sob

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THE IMMORTAL CHEERLEADER

By screaminheathen69

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_Chapter the Third_

Claire Bennet was sweating.

Buckets.

She was also tired, sore and bruised, but mostly, she just really, _really _wished that the sweat would stop dripping into her eyes. It was just irritating, you know? Really, incredibly, profoundly, stupendously, Godawful _irritating._

And it stung, too.

_Sweat band, dumbass! Write it down, sear it into your brain, never forget it again. S-W-E-A-T-B-A-N-D. _She thought she was beginning to understand why all those guys in all those old martial arts movies always wore headbands.

Shifting her grip on her sword, she ducked under Duncan's swing and brought her own blade up in a diagonal slash, which he easily parried, adding a little push to it. She stumbled and went down, landing unceremoniously on her rump.

This whole training-to-be-a-martial-artist-and-sword-master-thing was turning out to be a lot harder than she thought it would.

Duncan and Kate had crammed an incredible amount of training into just three weeks, and she certainly was better able to defend herself, but she still had a _lot _to learn.

To that end, her hosts had offered to let her stay with them for as long as she liked, ot at least until she was better trained. She figured she probably would, but decided she'd better talk it over with her 'family' first. Duncan and Kate thought that that would probably be wise. They didn't want a bunch of over-protective super-powered people pissed off at them, after all.

Claire was taking her training very seriously. This ridiculous Game aside, when she considered how weird her life was on the best of days, it just made sense to learn how to take care of herself. Her friends couldn't be there every minute of everyday, after all. So, she trained hard. She was extremely glad that she was a fast learner.

Duncan held his sword behind him loosely and offered Claire a hand up, grinning. She just shot him a dirty look and got up on her own, rubbing her backside absentmindedly. "Why do I have the feeling it's gonna take me years to get as good as you?"

Kate, sitting off to one side, chuckled. "_Nobody_ is as good as my hubby."

Duncan glanced over at his wife, smiling. Kate scrunched up her face, considering. "Well... Not usually, anyway."

Duncan just quirked an eyebrow at her before turning back to his student. "What you'll find as time goes on is that no matter how good you get, there will always be somebody better."

Claire mopped some of the sweat from her face. "So what do I do then?"

"Run."

"Run?"

"Yes, run. It's kind of like the old saying goes; 'He who fights and runs away, lives to fight another day'. Or 'discretion is the better part of valor'. It may be a bit cliched, but it's true. If you can't beat your opponent, look for a way out. Get clear until you can figure out how to beat him. Then and _only_ then do you allow yourself to be drawn into another fight."

Claire took this in thoughtfully. "But what if I'm trapped? What if there isn't a way out?"

"Cheat," Kate put in.

Claire looked a bit surprised. "Cheat? But I thought this 'Game'," she made air-quotes with her fingers, "was supposed to be all ritualistic and honorable and stuff."

Duncan grinned tiredly. "It is. But not all of the Immortals you meet will be. A lot of them live and breathe the credo that There Can Be Only One. And if it comes down to living or dying, you do whatever it takes to stay alive."

Claire was staring at her hands as she shifted her grip on her sword. "Have you ever had to cheat?"

"A few times. I try to keep things on the up and up as much as possible, but sometimes a you just don't have a choice."

Claire walked over to a nearby table and took a long pull on the bottle of water that was sitting there. _Guess I'll just have to think of a few ways to cheat. Aha, there it is. _She grabbed her sweatband and put it on, then turned back to face her teacher, a determined look on her face.

"Okay. Let's go again..."

_To be continued...

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_'To thee no star be dark...'_


	4. Chapter the Fourth

Notes: Yup. Almost three years. Bet you thought I'd forgotten about you. Between computer deaths, epicly screwed up real life, and a back surgery that I wish to God I'd had years ago (if only the doctors had actually been able to figure out that I needed it a helluva lot sooner), things have been just a wee bit of a mess.

Better now.

I fully intend to finish this and every other WIP, but things are still a bit goofy around here, so your continued patience is very much appreciated.

Disclaimer: Let's all do the Disclaimer Dance! …umm… is that anything like the Safety Dance?

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THE IMMORTAL CHEERLEADER

By screaminheathen69

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_Chapter the Fourth_

"You're _what_?"

Claire couldn't quite stop the smirk. Peter had tagged along with Hiro to meet her at the top of the Eiffel Tower. Now they were sitting comfortably aboard Duncan's barge, wide-eyed and slack-jawed at the story Claire had just told them. It was perfectly understandable, their disbelief, but she still couldn't help herself.

Hence, the smirk.

"Staying in Paris. I still need a _lot _more training if I wanna survive this funderful 'Game' I'm now officially a part of. And since I was lucky enough to stumble onto what I'm told are two of the very few Immortals that aren't going to immediately try to get chop-happy on my noggin, I figure I'd better take advantage of their hospitality."

She shrugged. "Besides, it's _Paris. _Why _wouldn't _I want to stay?"

"There was that little thing where you got robbed, dear," Kate put in.

"Okay, _one_ not-so-great thing. Otherwise, _Paris_!" She waved her arms, taking in the whole city. Besides, Kate had introduced her to some of the most _amazing _shops…

Hiro had what was quite possibly one of the most over-active imaginations on the planet, but even _he_ was having trouble with some of what he had heard in the last hour. "Are you sure about this, cheerleader? That it is real?"

Claire couldn't help but smile a little. Hiro still called her 'cheerleader', but from him, it was a term of endearment. "It's real. I've _seen _it. Duncan was attacked a couple of weeks ago. I saw the whole fight. It's scary as Hell, but it's definitely real." She wasn't going to forget the lightning storm at the end of the fight, or how it made her tingle all over even just being at the periphery, any time soon.

"There's no way we can hide your immortality?" Peter asked. "Mask it somehow, so you don't have to play the Game?" He _really _didn't like the idea of his niece spending hundreds, or possibly _thousands_ of years fighting for her life.

Duncan spoke up. "No. Believe me, after four hundred years, if there was a way to do that, I would've found it by now. Pretty much the only way to stay safe is to live on holy ground. Which is nice for a while, but it does get old eventually." Kate snorted. Been there, done that.

"Holy ground? Why is holy ground safe?"

"It's one of the most important rules of the Game. No Immortal would dare fight on holy ground. Bad things tend to happen."

"What kind of bad things?" Hiro asked.

Duncan quirked an eyebrow. "Ever heard of Pompeii?"

"Pompeii? Yes, I… oh…"

"Exactly. Even the worst of us won't violate that rule. It's absolutely sacred."

"And since I have no desire to be a nun," said Claire, "that's where the sword fighter training comes in. I plan to be around for a _very_ long time."

Peter sighed. He wasn't happy about the situation, but he could see the logic of it. Claire was better off here, learning the survival skills she so obviously was going to need. "Okay. I'll explain everything to Nathan." He shook his head and chuckled. "Not that he's going to believe me."

He knelt in front of Claire and took her hands in his. "Just remember, you need help, Hiro and I are just a teleport away."

Claire gave a huff of laughter. "Trust me, I get in over my head, you'll hear me yelling clear across the Atlantic."

Duncan smiled. "And Kate and I will be keeping an eye on her until she's ready. I won't let her leave until I'm sure she can take care of herself."

Peter nodded. "Fair enough. We'll drop in every once in a while to catch up. Deal?"

Claire hugged him. "Deal." She got up and hugged Hiro too. "It'll be fine. Trust me." She rubbed her hands together. "Now I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm starved. There's this great little café just down the street from here…"

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To be continued…

'_To thee no star be dark…'_


End file.
